Conventionally, with regard to an arrangement for confirming a vehicle user's intention to unlock a door, for example, one disclosed by Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-221949 is known, in which a capacitance sensor is disposed within an operating handle, and a vehicle user's intention to unlock a door is confirmed by means of a change in capacitance when the vehicle user's hand approaches or touches the operating handle.
However, in this conventional arrangement, since electrodes formed as members that are separate from a circuit board are connected to a detection circuit provided on the circuit board, it is necessary to ensure that there is a space for arranging the electrodes within the operating handle in addition to a space for housing the circuit board, the space that has to be reserved within the operating handle is relatively large, and it is difficult to make a thin operating handle.